Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies (LACLxS)

The question of what it means to be human requires continual investigation. Anthropology offers conceptual tools and an ethical groundwork for understanding humanity in all its diversity. This course familiarizes students with anthropological concepts and methods. We will engage in critical analysis of a broad range of subjects including language, exchange, class, race, gender, kinship, sexuality, religion, and capitalism.

Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Citizens and Society (FA4), Projects and Methods (FA6)

Writing Intensive

This course invites students to examine an idea central to theories of transitional justice: that holding perpetrators of mass violence legally accountable enables transitions from war to peace and authoritarianism to democracy. We will examine this idea by focusing on Latin America, where social movements for legal accountability and human rights prosecutions have flourished since the 1980s, influencing law and transitional justice mechanisms globally. By engaging ethnographies of transition, we will critically examine concepts such as justice, accountability, catastrophic violence, transition, and the rule of law, comparing how anthropologists and lawyers reason, formulate questions, and engage evidence.

Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1), Projects and Methods (FA6)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

Tom Jobim, best known as the composer of the bossa nova classic “Girl from Ipanema,” once quipped, “Brazil is not for beginners.” Beyond enduring stereotypes, the complexities and contradictions of Brazilian society have long been fertile ground for anthropological inquiry. This seminar offers close readings of classic and contemporary ethnography that interrogate Brazilian society as a set of questions and paradoxes.  We will also explore, conversely, how studies in Brazil have deeply shaped core anthropological thought.

Prerequisite(s): Students who have already taken, or are currently enrolled in AS.070.636, are not eligible to take AS.070.336.

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

The Environmental Justice Workshop is a space for engaged learning and collaborative environmental work, giving students a chance to join in the collective struggle to build equitable and sustainable urban futures in Baltimore. In the fall of 2025, the workshop will be taught by anthropologist Anand Pandian (Johns Hopkins) as a cross-institutional partnership with anthropologist Chloe Ahmann (Cornell University) and the South Baltimore Community Land Trust. Working together as a team of faculty and students at both universities, we will collaborate with environmental justice activists and Baltimore residents to research, write, and produce a four-part digital humanities curriculum about the discriminatory history of waste management in Baltimore and its impact on working-class and minority residents. Students enrolled in this course will gain experience with archival and ethnographic research methods, learn how to conduct time-sensitive research responsive to community needs, and produce media resources for a broader civic audience engaged in the fight for environmental justice. Many class sessions will take place in various community locations in south Baltimore, and meeting times include transportation to/from the Homewood campus.

Distribution Area: Quantitative and Mathematical Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences

In this course, we will follow the development of black poetry primarily as it has evolved in the United States. Beginning with the first published African American writers of the eighteenth century and ending with several important poets writing and performing today, we will consider the shape of the African American poetic tradition as commonly anthologized and as defined by our own theoretically-informed readings of the assigned literature. Attention will be given to both canonical and neglected literary movements and groups. Readings will include poetry and essays by Frances E.W. Harper, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, Harryette Mullen, Tracie Morris, and others.

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

This course explores the historical, theoretical, and political question of liberation in the African diaspora from the period of enslavement up to the current era. We will consider three major themes: enslavement, marronage, and freedom; Pan-Africanism and anti-colonialism; Black Power and national liberation. We will examine how African peoples conceptualized freedom and liberation in each period, the major organizations and intellectuals who framed them, and how popular activity developed and informed all three (ideas, organizations, and intellectuals). Some of the questions taken up include: How did enslaved Africans conceptualize freedom? Did their ideas and activities merely extend western notions of liberty and freedom, or did they develop distinct conceptions of freedom, rights, and humanity? Why, in the early Twentieth Century, did African peoples around the world pursue pan-Africanism as a political philosophy? How do class, nationality, gender, and sexuality inform such movements? Did national liberation struggles from the 1950s through the 1970s in Africa and the Caribbean bring about fundamental changes to those societies or merely replicate colonial regimes? What connections existed between national liberation movements in Africa and the Caribbean, and Civil Rights and Black Power in the United States and England?

Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

Writing Intensive

Introduction to Critical Diaspora Studies will explore the transnational, relational, and comparative approach to racism, migration, and colonialism at the heart of this major. It will introduce students to cutting-edge literature in the major’s four tracks: Migration and Borders; Global Indigeneities; Empires, Wars, and Carceralities; and Solidarities, Social Movements, and Citizenship. Topics covered will include diasporic and indigenous cultures and politics from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, as well as the United States. Students should expect to learn the value of interdisciplinary and transnational approaches to questions of social belonging, activism, justice, and politics. This course will also be useful to students in all humanities and social science majors who are interested in questions of racism, migration, and colonialism. This course may entail travel over fall break.

AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

Worldwide, there has been rapidly growing interest in research, education, and discourse around the Food-Energy-Water-Nexus (FEW-Nexus). This course will provide students with a framework to describe, analyze, and assist in addressing these complex interrelationships associated with coupled human-natural systems at local, regional, and global scales. The course integrates physical and biological sciences, social and behavioral sciences, humanities, and engineering while covering broad frameworks such as ecosystem-based approaches, critical historical and ethnographic analysis, decision science, and relevant research methods. The course culminates in a funded field work experience at several sites in Brazil. Admission by permission of instructors.

AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

This course explores the transnational convergence of Asians/Asian Americans and Latinxs/ Latinx Americans from a history of multiple imperialisms to the neoliberal, globalized present. We will situate the racialization of Asian and Latinx peoples within a larger, global framework and think critically about areas of solidarity and tension between these two multi-ethnic groups through readings in literature, history, and sociology.

Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken AS.060.148 are not able to take AS.060.351.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

This course looks at the traditions of anticolonial thought from the early twentieth century to the present day. Comparing movements for national liberation, realignment, and literary self-determination from across the Americas and around the world, we consider the shifting claims of empires and the colonial subjects, anticolonial frameworks, and decolonial movements that sought to contest these formations. We’ll focus largely on the Americas and the Caribbean, where the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and American empires all competed, but we’ll also consider these movements in their worldwide adventure, a “global” perspective that accounts for how processes of decolonization were understood in Ireland, India, China, and elsewhere. Our focus will often be on manifestoes and essays in which anticolonial writers outlined their literary and political programs, but we’ll also look at a few poems, stories, and films. From Lenin and DuBois’s calls to think about the relationship between racial capitalism and imperialism to Getino and Solanas’s revolutionary cinema protesting American neocolonialism, how have the claims of anticolonial political thought found their expression?

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

In this First-Year Seminar, we examine inequalities in income, wealth, and working conditions in the United States today. What do the historical trends look like and how do economists explain them? Is economic inequality a significant problem? If so, why? And what tools do we have in the policy arsenal to address it? We will draw on diverse sources, including economics readings, op-eds, podcasts, and short vignettes from literature to motivate our weekly discussions. Students will have the opportunity to present group research and lead class discussions drawing on the economic concepts developed in class. At the end of the semester, students will complete an individual research project exploring some aspect of current inequality, inspired by their own selection from literature, poetry, music, or film.

What does it mean to live and to write in more than one language? This is a particularly charged question in today’s globalized world. In this First-Year Seminar, we will explore texts and films produced by multilingual writers and directors, who reflect on the experiences of the multilingual subject; their concerns range from the turmoil of living between identities and cultures, to the playful experience of daily life and existence opened up through thinking and working in multiple languages. Main questions will include: In what ways do languages influence how writers write? How does the presence of multiple languages in a text structure a reading experience and for whom? How do texts by multilingual writers destabilize conceptions of national literature? While some texts we will read were originally composed in English, the majority were written by multilingual writers in other languages. Finally, therefore, we will address what it means to read translated into English texts that were, in some sense, already produced “in translation.”

Distribution Area: Humanities

Long overshadowed by the American and French Revolutions, the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) is now widely recognized as one of the most important events in modern history. The most radical of the Atlantic Revolutions, it began with a massive uprising of the enslaved against the institution of slavery and culminated in the independence of the nation of Haiti. This First-Year Seminar will examine the origins, course, and legacy of the Revolution, addressing such issues as colonialism, racism, slavery, emancipation, human rights, and national sovereignty – issues that continue to shape the contemporary world.

Distribution Area: Humanities

The class will learn by readings from books such as The White Plague by Rene’ and Jean Dubos, The Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif, The Aetiology of Tuberculosis by Robert Koch and Fever by John Fuller, videos, class interactions and discussions, and after the introductory portion of the course, by presentations of research papers about M. tuberculosis pathogenesis and treatment.

A class combining Latin American history since independence and digital humanities. Students will build guided research projects while thinking about questions of republicanism, freedom and unfreedom, migration, and development.

Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1), Projects and Methods (FA6)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

From 1565 to 1815, the Manila galleons sailed between Spanish colonies in the Philippines and Mexico. Thousands of free and enslaved Asians from all over coastal Asia disembarked these ships at Acapulco and, within decades, could be found throughout Mexico, Central America, and Peru. A second and larger migratory wave of Chinese and South Asian contract laborers arrived in the Caribbean and South America during the nineteenth century. This course examines these two waves and their entanglements to chart the trajectories of the earliest Asian diasporas in the Americas. In the evaluation of these topics, we will pay close attention to racialization, cross-cultural exchange, lived experience, and unfree labor.

Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

The legacies of colonialism in Latin America have been bitterly contested in recent film and other digital media. From highlighting the afterlives of enslavement to asserting Indigenous rights, creators and audiences have turned to screens to address the open wounds of the region’s colonial past. By analyzing hits like También la lluvia and the Mexican cult favorite, 499, this course uses film analysis, cultural memory, and primary sources to understand how these media make arguments about Latin America's colonial past and its significance in the present. The course similarly engages with the field of historical game studies through the analysis of videogames and boardgames that create simulations of early modern societies in the Americas. In this course, students will develop the ability to identify how digital media production and reception shape the memory of colonialism in the American hemisphere. In so doing, they will also acquire a deeper knowledge of Latin American colonial histories and their influence on contemporary culture. Necessarily, the course heavily emphasizes Indigenous perspectives and so simultaneously serves as an introduction to Indigenous Studies in Latin America.

Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

This course explores development as an ideology and a practice. From colonialism to the Cold War to contemporary NGOs, we will interrogate the history of our attempts to improve the world. This iteration of the course will have a particular focus on the intersections between development and the environment. Graduate students welcome.

Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Citizens and Society (FA4), Projects and Methods (FA6)

Writing Intensive

This seminar explores how the sex and gender binary was produced through US colonialism since the nineteenth century. Topics include domestic settler colonialism, as well as Hawaii, the Caribbean, and Asia.

Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1)

Writing Intensive

In this course, students participate in a research “laboratory,” engaging in direct research on an area of faculty’s research, leading to the development of a collective, digital humanities project.

Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Projects and Methods (FA6)

This course explores the practice of writing and reading the history of African Americans and the wider African Diaspora. Participants will share written work and do close readings of primary and secondary texts exploring the black experience in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Black World Seminar explores historical approaches to the study of African-descended people and analyzes processes of racial formation responsible for producing “blackness,” a human invention, as a social fact. This specific iteration of Black World will consider the role of political economy in shaping the life-worlds of Africans and those living throughout the African Diaspora.

Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences

This course surveys the art and architecture of Mesoamerica, from the ancestral Puebloans in what is today the Southwestern United States, through the homelands of the Mexica, Maya, and Zapotec in Central America, to the Taíno and Chiriquí in the Circum-Caribbean. After first discussing the concept of “Mesoamerica,” we will then explore the material and spatial productions of these Indigenous groups. Each week we will focus on a different urban setting, examining the works communities made and used there, which included sculpture, ceramics, murals, manuscripts, textiles, metalwork, and earthen architecture. Course themes will include—but are not limited to—the portrayal of humans, animals, and sacred figures; urban design, construction, and monumentality; as well as how materials and spaces were used for religious and political purposes.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

This course critically examines the visual arts through the medium of documentary, historical, and Hollywood film. Coverage is mostly North America and Mesoamerica.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Ethics and Foundations (FA5), Projects and Methods (FA6)

This course considers how people envision, construct, and negotiate place in cultures throughout the Ancient Americas. From the dark galleries of the Old Temple at Chavín de Huantar to the towering twin Templo Mayor in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, we will consider how Indigenous makers created powerful places, and how those places would have been experienced and understood by ancient communities. Considering art and architecture in a variety of media, we will study places where gods live; places where important things happened; places that ordered the world; and places where humans access and negotiate power.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

Viewed within the dynamic historical context of colonial society, we consider the pictorial, sculptural, and architectural programs that ensued in viceregal Peru (1532-1825). We examine the role of religious orders, art schools, artisan guilds and cofradía, and consider the social and political implications of art patronage.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

This course examines curative medicine in the Americas through its visual culture and oral histories. Philosophies about the body, health, and causes of illness are considered, as are representations of practitioners and their pharmacology. Case studies are drawn from cross the Americas (Aztec, Moche, Aymara, Paracas, American SW). Collections study in museums, Special Collections.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)

The visual arts of Andean South America and their respective cultural contexts form the basis of our study. Collections study in local and regional museums.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)

Visual arts are examined and discussed in their respective social and historical contexts.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

This course will grapple with modern art as it emerges in critically important locations around the world over the course of the twentieth century, with an emphasis on Asia, Africa, and South America. Anti-colonial movements, national formations, geopolitical alliances, institution-building, exhibition, fair, and biennial histories, art group manifestos, and the intertwined relations of race, ethnicity, Indigeneity, gender, class, and sexuality. Museum visits to view works of art in person will be incorporated into the course.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)

Writing Intensive

Drawing on case studies from North America, Mesoamerica, and the Andes this course considers various approaches to entombment and funerary ritual. Our analyses bear upon beliefs about death and the afterlife, ancestor veneration, fear of the dead, and the body as a site of embodied values. Tombs provide a specific context for interpreting object offerings and their attendant meanings. Collections study in regional museums.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)

This course addresses the technology, iconography and social significance of metals and draws on case studies from the Americas. Collections study in museums.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)

In the ancient Americas, power was told through objects and objects told of power. Portraits rendered a king’s visage in stone while mural programs depicted formidable deities. Towering pyramids were climbed by rulers and the open plazas below were structured spaces for spectacles. Hieroglyphic texts could picture authoritative narratives. Literacy was controlled by those who wielded power, yet pictographic literacy could place power in the hands of the viewer. But how did powerful images or places of power come into being? And how were these works of art received, and challenged, by those not in power? Extending geographically from North to South America, this course explores how power was imaged during the ancient period (beginning in the 2nd millennium BCE). The last third of the course will be devoted to exploring not only how powerful images were received by Spanish invaders but also how the Indigenous elite continued to garner power through art under the rulings of New Spain.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)

Writing Intensive

In photographs and museum displays, the visual culture of the ancient Americas is made static. Pyramids stand vacant, sculptures appear frozen, and once portable objects remain stationary. But ancient American small-scale objects were designed to be set in motion for ritual and pilgrimage, free-standing stelae and altars were meant to be circumambulated and engaged with directly, and architecture (and spaces bound by architecture) influenced the shape of bodily movement. Notably absent from a twenty-first century vantage point are the ways that these spaces, and the spaces around art, were interacted with and how objects such as polychromed ceramics and carved pieces of precious stone were moved from place to place by the region’s ancient Indigenous residents. Exploring a rich visual and material record and considering the movement of both people and objects, this course asks how works of art influenced the ways ancient peoples physically interacted with and moved throughout the three-dimensional world. By considering a series of case studies from the ancient Americas, this course seeks to better understand the full aesthetic dimensions of this visual culture in the context of its rich social use. Additionally, we will also engage with issues related to contemporary travel, tourism, and migration that crosses through these places and materials. No prior knowledge of the field is required.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)

Writing Intensive

Stelae, altars, colossal heads, thrones, figures, lintels. This course considers how artists created these stone monuments in Mesoamerica, the historical region that encompasses Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras, and El Salvador. Sculptors meticulously carved stone blocks to shape and then scribes expertly incised their surfaces with hieroglyphic text or iconography. These stone monuments were then transported and moved into position, their physical placements structuring social hierarchy and mediating interactions with the divine. In reviewing recent literature within the fields of art history and material studies, we will explore the full cycle of production for monumental works of art.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)

Writing Intensive

The American continent and its islands are home to a diverse and delicate ecosystem, and for millennia, Indigenous communities have tended to and shaped these rich landscapes. This seminar journeys across the Americas to understand how Indigenous makers cultivated materials from these ecologies and transformed them into impressive arrays of art and architecture. Each week, students will explore a different medium—bark, shell, rubber, feathers, reed, stone, clay, etc.—that makers shaped into visual and spatial forms. Although this course focuses on the ancestral and early modern periods, it will also explore continued and shifting practices with these materials among contemporary artists. Readings will include material analyses, art historical and archaeological interpretations, as well as early colonial writings by Indigenous authors. There will also be opportunities for students to engage with materials in class. Course material will cover issues of technical skill and ecological knowledge; ephemerality and (im)permanence; animacy and relationality as it pertains to the relationships formed between makers and their works; and the role of Indigenous materialities in reconfiguring canons and categories that continue to scaffold the field of art history. For their final assignment, students will select a multimedia work from the Indigenous Americas and unpack its materiality in both presentation and essay format.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)

Medical practice is complex in Latin America and the Caribbean. Most countries in the region have universal healthcare; yet, the quality of clinical services varies widely, and is influenced by degrees of incorporation into—or marginalization from—social power structures. Many people take their health into their own hands by supplementing biomedicine with plant based remedies as well as religious and spiritual services. This course will interrogate the history and contemporary relevance of healthcare in Latin America and the Caribbean, with particular interest in how medicine intersects with colonialism, slavery, capitalism, neo-colonialism, grassroots revolutionary movements, the Cold War, and neoliberalism. Drawing on films, visual and performance art, and music, students will consider the ways in which race, gender, indigeneity, ability, class, and nation have affected people’s experiences with medical practice. Informed by postcolonial and decolonial scholarship, we will also examine why Latin America and the Caribbean have become “laboratories” for the production of medical knowledge, and importantly, how that knowledge was created by indigenous, enslaved, and migrant people as well as professionals. Finally, we seek to understand individual health problems in relation to the social and political determinants of health. As such, the course prompts students to reflect on why healthcare professionals—in the United States and abroad—would benefit from historically-informed communication with patients and their communities. This is a discussion-based seminar that requires active participation. There are no exams. The course does not assume any previous knowledge of the history of medicine or Latin American history.

Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

Writing Intensive

While there is a vast literature on reproduction in a global context, this course will focus on the arc of what we might call decolonial histories of reproduction—those that center issues of justice, freedom, intimacy, and agency, as well as cultural negotiation, conflict, and change. Students will write critical histories of reproduction, with attention to the ways in which reproductive politics interface with institutions that exert hegemonic, racialized, gendered, and ableist forms of state power and colonial power. We will also appreciate the ways in which reproduction interacts with other—non geographically-bound, non-institutionalized, and non-state mediated—forms of biopolitical power. We will analyze how the historiography has evolved over time and discuss future directions in the field.

Learn the basics of ArcGIS, data management, and the history of maps and censuses as you help Prof. Lurtz build a digital historical atlas of Mexico. No experience necessary, graduate students welcome.

Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Citizens and Society (FA4), Projects and Methods (FA6)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

An interdisciplinary seminar on Latin America’s role in wider cultural, economic, and political processes, from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Please see class search for semester topic description.

Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences

The second in a two-semester graduate sequence, this course will be for graduate students and faculty to collaboratively workshop their own research and writing on topics related to Latin American studies.

Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences

This course surveys the literary and cultural productions of Black and Latinx science fictioneers and their generative confrontations with the sci-fi genre’s fraught colonial, gendered, and racialized technoscientific origins. By engaging works of the Afrofuturist and Latinxfuturist imagination (ex. film, short stories, novels, and visual art) alongside science fiction criticism, and readings spanning the subfields of feminist, queer, and postcolonial science and technology studies, we’ll consider how Black and Latinx science fictioneers, past and present, appropriate the idioms of science and technology to upend essentialist accounts of gender, race, and sexuality, and fashion radical remappings of “gendered,” “raced,” and “sexed” bodies. Throughout the course of the semester, we'll also be interrogating how (and to what end) Black and Latinx sci-fi writers and creators such as Octavia E. Butler, Nalo Hopkinson, Janelle Monáe, Firelei Báez, E.G. Condé , and Silvia Moreno-Garcia, among others, complicate, reconceptualize, and expand the contours of the “science” in science fiction. In so doing, we will assess the implications (be these social, political, epistemological, etc.) of positioning Black and Latinx peoples, who have more often than not been made the objects of science (and scientific racism), as key interlocutors, producers, and critical surveyors of technoscientific knowledge.

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)

Writing Intensive

No previous knowledge of Portuguese is required. This one-year sequence is a Portuguese introductory course for non-romance language speakers. The course introduces students to the basic skills in reading, writing, and speaking the language. Emphasis is placed on oral communication with extensive training in written and listening skills. Class participation is encouraged from the very beginning. Upon the successful completion of this course with a grade of C or higher, students may enroll in 210.172 Portuguese Elements II. May not be taken on a Satisfactory / Unsatisfactory basis. No Prereq. THERE IS NO FINAL EXAM.

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

NO PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE OF PORTUGUESE IS REQUIRED. This fast-paced one-semester course covers all content for Portuguese Elementary. This course is designed as an accelerated introductory course for speakers with a sound knowledge of Spanish OR other romance languages (e.g. French and Italian). The course will cover introductory aspects of Portuguese grammar and present relevant points of the cultures of the Portuguese speaking countries. Upon the successful completion of this course with a grade of C or higher, students may enroll in 210.271 Portuguese Intermediate. May not be taken on a Satisfactory / Unsatisfactory basis. No Prereq. THERE IS NO FINAL EXAM.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Intermediate Portuguese I is designed for students who have attained an advanced elementary level in the language. The course offers training in the skills of the language with emphasis on expanding grammatical knowledge and vocabulary, while developing ease and fluency in the language through the use of a multifaceted approach. Course materials immerse students in the contemporary cultures of Portuguese-speaking world. Upon the successful completion of Intermediate Portuguese I, students may enroll in the next level, Intermediate Portuguese II – AS.210.272. May not be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis.

Prerequisite(s): AS.210.172 OR AS.210.173, or placement exam.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Intermediate Portuguese II is designed for students who have attained a mid-intermediate level in the language or completed Intermediate Portuguese I AS.210.271. The course offers training in the skills of the language with emphasis on advancing grammatical knowledge, expanding vocabulary, and developing fluency in the language through the use of a multifaceted approach. Course materials immerse students in the cultures of Brazil, Portugal, and Portuguese-speaking Africa, and reflect the mix of cultures at work in the contemporary Lusophone world. Successful completion of Intermediate Portuguese II will prepare students for the next level Advanced Portuguese I – AS.210.371. May not be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. Prereq: AS.210.271 (old AS.210.277) or placement test. THERE IS NO FINAL EXAM.

Prerequisite(s): AS.210.277 or equivalent score on placement test or instructor approval.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Improve your Portuguese conversational and speaking skills through colorful Brazilian media. This course is designed for highly motivated undergraduate and graduate students who want to SPEAK Portuguese. Conversation sessions provide intensive work on communication skills through discussion on issues raised in films, news media & music. Grammar will be reviewed as needed outside of class with tutors or TA, freeing class time for more communicative activities. May not be taken on a Satisfactory / Unsatisfactory basis. Prereq: one semester of Portuguese, two semesters of Spanish or Placement test.

Prerequisite(s): AS.210.275 OR AS.210.277 OR AS.210.278 OR AS.210.391 OR AS.210.392

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

Medical Spanish is a comprehensive examination of vocabulary and grammar for students who either work or intend to work in medicine and health-related fields in Spanish-speaking environments. The student will be able to participate in conversations on topics such as contrasting health systems, body structures, disorders and conditions, consulting your doctor, physical and mental health, first-aid, hospitalization and surgery on completion of this course. In completing the course’s final project students will apply, synthesize, and reflect on what has been learned in the class by creating a professional dossier individualized to their professional interests. There is no final exam. Not open to native speakers of Spanish. No new enrollments permitted after the third class session.

Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311 OR AS.210.312 or appropriate Spanish placement exam score.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

Spanish for international business is an overview of business topics in an international Spanish-speaking context with an emphasis on deep review of grammar and vocabulary acquisition. On completion of this course the student will have developed the ability to read and critically discuss business and government relations in Latin America and will have examine entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, business ethics, human resources and commerce in the Spanish speaking world. In completing the course’s final project students will apply, synthesize, and reflect on what has been covered in the class by creating a professional dossier individualized to their own professional interests. Concepts learned in this course will be directly applicable to careers linked to international relations and will apply to various careers in business. There is no final exam. May not be taken satisfactory/unsatisfactory. Not open to native speakers of Spanish. No new enrollments permitted after the third class session. Language Program Director: Loreto Sanchez-Serrano

Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311 or or appropriate Spanish placement exam score.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

Conversational Spanish surveys high-interest themes, discusses short films by contemporary Hispanic filmmakers and offers a thorough review of grammar. The student will be able to participate in conversations on topics such as personality traits, social media, political power, art and lifestyles on completion of this course. Conversational skills mastered during the course apply to all careers interconnected by Spanish. There is no final exam. Not open to native speakers of Spanish. No new enrollments permitted after the third class session.

Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311 or appropriate Spanish placement exam score.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

This third-year course is a hands-on and process-oriented introduction to discussion and compositional analysis. On completion of this course, students will have improved their Spanish writing skills in various types of compositions they might be expected to write in academic settings and in real-life formats such as film reviews, letters to the editor, cover letters, etc. The course also focuses on refinement of grammar and vocabulary use. Not open to native speakers of Spanish. .

Prerequisite(s): AS.210.312 or appropriate Spanish placement exam score.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

Spanish for engineering is a comprehensive examination of vocabulary and grammar for students who either work or intend to work in the engineering field to develop their communicative strategies in the field of engineering. On completion of this course, students will be able to participate in conversations on topics such as applications of biomedical engineering in the diagnosis and treatment of different medical conditions, efficient use of energy and materials, design and construction of public works, development of electrical systems and development of solutions to environmental problems. In completing the course’s final project students will apply, synthesize, and reflect on what has been learned in the class by creating a professional dossier individualized to their professional interests.There is no final exam. May not be taken satisfactory/unsatisfactory. Not open to native speakers of Spanish. No new enrollments permitted after the third-class session.

Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

Designed to sharpen students’ abilities in contemporary spoken and written Portuguese. This third-year course fosters the development of complex language skills that enhance fluency, accuracy and general proficiency in Portuguese and its appropriate use in professional and informal contexts. Students will briefly review previous grammar structures and concentrate on new complex grammar concepts. Using a variety of cultural items such as current news, short stories, plays, films, videos, newspaper articles, and popular music, students discuss diverse topics followed by intense writing and oral discussion with the aim of developing critical thinking and solid communication skills.Successful completion of Advanced Portuguese I will prepare students for the next level, Advanced Portuguese II, AS.210.372. May not be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. Prereq: AS.210.272 or (old AS.210.278) or placement test. THERE IS NO FINAL EXAM.

Prerequisite(s): AS.210.278 OR AS.210.272 or equivalent score on placement test or instructor approval.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

Advanced Portuguese II offers a systematic review of the Portuguese language focused on the development of students’ communicative skills and their knowledge of the Lusophone culture. This course fosters the development of complex language skills that enhance fluency, accuracy and general proficiency in Portuguese and its appropriate use in professional and informal contexts. Students will concentrate on complex grammar concepts and the use of appropriate written and oral registers. Using a variety of cultural items such as current news, short stories, plays, films, videos, newspaper articles, and popular music, students discuss diverse topics followed by intense writing and oral discussion with the aim of developing critical thinking and solid communication skills. May not be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. Prereq: AS.210.371 or placement test.

Prerequisite(s): AS.210.391 OR AS.210.371 or equivalent score on placement test or instructor approval.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

Contacts and Contrasts in Spanish for the Professions harnesses a comparative approach to reviewing grammar and learning Spanish by offering translation practice from English to Spanish and thrusting synthesis of prior courses into coherent professional tools. Techniques may include comparing texts of medicine, public health, literature, technology, politics, and journalism between Spanish and English. Students will identify and differentiate terminology specific to these various fields and will focus on practicing correct uses of the grammatical structures relevant to English and Spanish in translation and cultural contact. In the course’s term projects, students will apply, synthesize, and reflect on their knowledge of Spanish by completing a translation exercise individualized to their professional interests. Strategies of communication mastered in this course will help students of Spanish throughout their careers.

Prerequisite(s): AS.210.313 OR AS.210.314 OR AS.210.315 OR AS.210.318 OR AS.210.319

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

Seminar participants immerse on stories and issues affecting Hispanics in the US, specifically questioning if social media and information created by artificial intelligence perpetuate subordination and miscommunication. By investigating platforms such as TikTok, Youtube and Twitter this course hones foundational critical thinking skills in the arts and humanities. Upon completion of this seminar, you will innovate and perfect research questions to continue studies in Hispanic and Latin American cultures. The course focusses on reading and analysis of distinct influencers such as #latinasinmedicine, @lin-manuel, @CDC, @johnshopkinssph, @WHO. Critical reading required.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

This course is a survey of U.S. Latinx literature that introduces students to the major trends in the tradition. While Latinx literature draws on literary traditions that span more than 400 years, our course will focus on more contemporary forms of the tradition, its “canon,” and how authors are currently “queering” this canon. Emphasizing the historical and aesthetic networks established in the Latinx literary canon that continue into the present while exploring the relationship between genre and socio-historical issues, we will read from a diverse tradition and range of genres that reflect the contested definition of “Latinx” and its shifting demographics in the U.S. We will also investigate how U.S. Latinx literature speaks to and expands “American” literary traditions, and how unique ethnic identities such as Mexican American, Nuyorican, Cuban American, and Dominican American offer different yet interconnecting representations of what it means to be Latinx in the U.S. This class ultimately underscores the heterogeneity of Latinx literature and asks how particular generic conventions stage the constructions of race, gender, sexuality, and class to establish a historically grounded understanding of the diverse literary voices and aesthetics that comprise U.S. Latinx literature.

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Did you know that Brazil is very similar to the United States? This course is intended as an introduction to the culture and civilization of Brazil. It is designed to provide students with basic information about Brazilian history, politics, economy, art, literature, popular culture, theater, cinema, and music. The course will focus on how Indigenous, Asian, African, and European cultural influences have interacted to create the new and unique civilization that is Brazil today. The course is taught in English.No Prereq. THERE IS NO FINAL EXAM.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

Without Amazonia, global warming could reach levels that threaten life on the planet. Yet, in an era of deforestation and climate change, Amazonia itself might be on the verge of disappearance, with disastrous consequences for the world. This course proposes interdisciplinary perspectives on Amazonia through a range of works drawn from history, anthropology, archeology, environmental studies, literature, and the arts. We’ll look at texts by European travelers and missionaries who contributed to the paradoxical image of Amazonia as a “virgin paradise” or a “green hell”; scientific studies and artists’ depictions of the region’s flora and fauna; the often-overlooked history of human occupation of the region; and projects to colonize, develop, or conserve the world’s largest tropical forest. What importance does Amazonia hold for Latin American and global geopolitics? How do art and literature, including indigenous writings, create, reinforce, or deconstruct clichés about the region? What alternative futures for our planet can Amazonia help us to imagine?

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Course is taught in ENGLISH. Did you know that one of the first Latin American actresses to conquer Hollywood was Brazilian? Did you know that cinema has existed in Brazil since 1895, just six months after the first screening in Paris? This course is an introduction to both the academic study of cinema as a communicative art and to Brazilian film. The films selected focus on the late 1950s to the present and highlight import episodes and challenges in the advancement of Brazilian society as well as its cinematic production. Film aesthetics are analyzed through a number of critical perspectives, including class, race, gender as well as ethnicity, nationalism or national identity, colonialism, social changes, and the politics of representation. In this sense, the films, and documentaries that we will be watching and studying encompass the period from the rise of New Cinema (Cinema Novo) up to films exploring the most recent trends, including movies launched up to 2022. Students wishing to do the course work in English for 3 credits should register for section 01. Those wishing to earn 4 credits by doing the course work in Portuguese should register for section 02. No Prereq.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

This class will explore the intersections of environmental and social justice issues through an analysis of literary fiction, documentaries and films, art, media, and archival materials. We will study how environmental issues are deeply connected with issues of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and the legacies of colonialism. We will pay close attention to the tensions encountered by notions such as environmentalism of the poor and the disparities that arise from a comparative and historical perspective Global South vis-à-vis Global North, and within the North, among the most vulnerable communities. We will consider the generative potential of storytelling and the arts for imagining an alternative socioeconomic and culture paradigm predicated on environmental sustainability and economic and social equity. This class is profoundly interdisciplinary, bringing together knowledge from all parts of students’ life. By the end of this course, students will see many connections between literary and cultural studies, environmental ethics, social justice, and civic engagement.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

A course that examines how women's bodies are depicted in horror literature and film, asking: how are issues of race, class, national identity, and belonging illuminated through the genre and its ongoing fascination with gender and sexuality? Why do we return to women's bodies to illuminate our fears? Why do we represent women's bodies through the horror genre? Focusing on speculative fiction and film, we will investigate how women's bodies speak to issues of power and spectatorship through affects such as disgust, terror, titillation, and pleasure.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

That the nations of the world could ever work together seems utopian, but also unavoidable: migration, war, and not least climate change make some form of global coordination increasingly necessary. This course will give historical and philosophical depth to the idea of a cosmopolitan order and world peace by tracing it from its ancient sources through early modernity to today. At the center of the course will be the text that has been credited with founding the tradition of a world federation of nations, Immanuel Kant’s "Toward Perpetual Peace" (1795). Confronting recent and current political discourse, literature, and philosophy with Kant’s famous treatise, we will work to gain a new perspective on the idea of a world order. In addition to Kant, readings include Homer, Erasmus, Pico della Mirandola, Rousseau, Jeremy Bentham, Emily Dickinson, Tolstoy, Whitman, Rosa Luxemburg, Gandhi, Hannah Arendt, John Lennon, and Martin Luther King as well as lesser-known authors such as the Abbé de Saint-Pierre, Ellen Key, Odette Thibault, Simone Weil, and Claude Lefort. Taught in English.

Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

This course examines the intersection of speculative fiction, horror, science fiction, and hauntings with latinidad. Reading a variety of short stories, novels, and films, we investigate how genre fiction addresses the unique experience of Latinxs in the Americas, compelling us to reimagine what the speculative can be as it intersects with race and ethnicity.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

In this seminar we will explore psychoanalytic theory as a method for interpreting art, literature, media, and political discourse. Our approach will be structured around an interlinking set of elements: historical stages in the development of Lacan’s theory; dimensions of experience as defined by the theory, specifically the symbolic, the imaginary, and the real; and moments of analytic interpretation, namely, the identification of the symptom, the staging of a fundamental fantasy in transference, and traversing the fantasy through subjective destitution. Readings will include texts from Lacan's seminars and writings as well as commentaries by the Slovenian philosophers Slavoj Žižek and Alenka Zupancic, the Haitian analyst Willy Apollon, the Argentine analyst Juan-David Nasio, and others. The seminar is being offered across several programs and will be taught in English, although students who can are encouraged to do readings in the original language. Attendance and participation are mandatory, but a term paper is not required.

Distribution Area: Humanities

This course will explore the fundamental aspects of Spanish culture from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. The course will offer a general survey of the history of Spain and will discuss texts, movies, songs, pictures, and paintings in relation to their social, political, and cultural contexts. This course will be of particular interest for students planning on spending a semester abroad in Spain—specially for those students going to the JHU Fall Semester in Madrid, at Carlos III University. Taught in Spanish. Recommended Course Background: AS.210.311 or appropriate Webcape score.AS.215.390 was formerly numbered AS.211.390

Prerequisite(s): Students may not have previously completed AS.211.390 OR AS.215.390.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Taught in Spanish. This course will explore the fundamental aspects of Latin- America culture from the formation of independent states through the present—in light of the social, political, and economic histories of the region. The course will offer a general survey of history of Latin- America, and will discuss texts, movies, songs, pictures, and paintings, in relation to their social, political, and cultural contexts. May not be taken satisfactory/unsatisfactory.

Prerequisite(s): Students may earn credit for AS.211.380 or AS.215.380, but not both.;AS.210.311

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)

The main objective of this course is to examine and discuss specific authors and topics in literature in Spanish from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. The course is designed to cover a selection of Hispanic texts from Spain and Latin America. Literary genres to be studied will include narratives, poetry, and drama. The bulk of each class session will be dedicated to the discussion of the assigned readings. This course is taught in Spanish. This course is required for the major in Spanish. Students who have completed AS.215.231 cannot take AS.215.211.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

This course aims to spotlight an often-overlooked corpus of texts to study the tradition of the Gothic mode in Latin America. A literary mode created in Europe and usually thought of as exclusive to the anglophone, francophone, and German traditions, the Gothic is, however, consistently present in Latin American stories, novels, and films. During the late XIX century, the texts of Edgar Allan Poe found fertile ground in the minds of modernista writers who began transforming the superficial elements of the Gothic mode to fit a new reality. Since then, the Gothic has resisted contention and continues to rear its head in texts penned by the likes of Jorge Luis Borges and Carlos Fuentes. This course seeks to briefly describe the path of the Gothic mode from its arrival in Latin America to some of its newest iterations and transformations. Taught in Spanish.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

This course explores Latin America’s sonic and auditory cultures, investigating how sound plays a central role in cultural expression and identity formation. Students will examine how diverse communities across the Global South engage with and interpret sound through various sonic objects—from artistic creations to industrial sounds and natural phenomena—and research the listening practices unique to Latin American communities. Drawing on interdisciplinary approaches from sound studies, media studies, postcolonial studies, and critical race theory, the course will explore how sound mediates power, social relations, and the boundaries between the human and the non-human. Emphasizing a Global South perspective, this course invites students to critically examine sound’s role in shaping Latin American communities’ lived experiences, offering a deeper understanding of how sonic practices define the region’s culture.

Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311 or Spanish Placement Exam

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quijote de la Mancha is widely considered to be the first modern novel of the Western tradition. It has influenced the likes of Nabokov, Sterne, Melville, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Borges, Dickens, and Faulkner (who reread it every year), among others. In a recent literary poll of the “100 Best Books of All Time,” in which the aforementioned authors remained unranked and “all on an equal footing,” some of the greatest living writers (Salman Rushdie, Assia Djebar, Herta Müller, Orhan Pamuk, Doris Lessing, Milan Kundera, Amitav Ghosh, Nadine Gordimer, Christa Wolf…) made an exception for Don Quijote, calling it the “best literary work ever written.” To what is such ubiquitous and unparalleled praise due? The purpose of this course will be to read Don Quijote in its entirety and to gain a critical understanding of the major cultural, historical, and political issues at play in the novel. We will seek, on the one hand, to draw out the general or ‘universal’ features that have established its place in the international literary canon while, on the other, to understand these features within the unique context of early modern Spain. By exploring such themes as parody, humor, madness, metafiction, psychoanalysis, chivalric literature, translation, and Moorish culture, the class will establish connections with other disciplines and literary traditions as well. Taught in Spanish.

Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311 AND AS.210.312

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)

Johns Hopkins holds one of the largest collections of ephemeral Spanish drama outside of Spain. Despite their modest appearance, JHU's comedias sueltas are unique witnesses to a prolific and rich dramatic culture in early modern Europe. In addition to works by the masters of Spain's Golden Age such as Lope de Vega, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, and Tirso de Molina, this collection comprises works by lesser-known figures from the long eighteenth century, including numerous anonymous works and even several that are unattested in the literary record. In this class, we will read and discuss representative works of these types, paying close attention to the context of the production and use of the copies in Special Collections at JHU. The final project will culminate in either a written translation or a performance of one of the comedias sueltas in the JHU collection. Taught in Spanish.

Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311 or Spanish Placement Exam

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

What does a novelist’s op-ed about economics have to do with her literary writing? In what ways does a fiction writer’s essays on the environment inform how we read her novels? What happens when we find the political opinions of a writer objectionable? This undergraduate seminar will consider what the Spanish writer Francisco Ayala termed “novelist intellectuals,” that is, literary writers who actively participate in a society’s public sphere. Considering writers from Madrid to New York, from London to Buenos Aires, we will ask how one should hold a novelist’s fictional and non-fictional writings in the balance and explore ways of reading that allow us to consider the public intellectual side and the aesthetic side of a novelist together.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

We will analyze and discuss four novels and three films impacted by gender violence and political idolatry under shattering stress. Oficio de tinieblas or The Book of Lamentations (1962) by Rosario Castellanos (Mexico). Zama (1956) by Antonio di Benedetto (Argentina). Delirio or Delirium (2004) by Laura Restrepo (Colombia). El ruido de las cosas al caer or The Noise of Things Falling (2011) by Juan Gabriel Vásquez (Colombia). In addition, we will examine in depth films by Lucrecia Martel (Argentina): the short Rey muerto (1995), La ciénaga (2001), and her own version of Zama (2017). Course taught in Spanish.

Prerequisite(s): AS.210.312

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1)

A survey and exploration of important works and themes in Latin American Literature of the modern period.

Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Democracy (FA4.1)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

Manifestos have been instrumental in shaping cultural, political, and social landscapes. Moving through and beyond the literary canon, this course examines manifestos as distinctive literary artifacts that intertwine art, politics, and calls to action, deeply reflecting the times and ideals from which they emerged. Focusing on Latin America, this interdisciplinary course examines the evolution of the manifesto as a discursive genre in the region. It traces its trajectory from the early 20th-century literary and artistic avant-gardes to the new contemporary forms of social, ecological, and political activism. The course includes a broad survey of cultural artifacts contextualized within historical and contemporary perspectives on identity, politics, ethics, aesthetics, nature, human and non-human rights, and social justice. Our classes will encompass texts from various countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, and others. The course integrates insights from diverse fields such as poetics, philosophy, literary studies, sound and media studies, design, and typography. This course will be conducted in Spanish, with reading and writing assignments accepted in Spanish and Portuguese, which will be encouraged and warmly welcomed.

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

What is an illness? How do we define a sick body? How can literature, films and art convey suffering and healing? How do traditional histories of medicine structure sickness? Is there a perception––and representation––of illness that can be specific to Latin American culture? How does the Spanish language address issues of sickness, disability, and pain? This course will explore experiences of illness, suffering, pain, and healing through the readings of narratives, works of theory and criticism, and the writings of artists themselves, as well as film, artistic practices, and documentaries. Discussions will place the narratives of illness in the intersections with the history of public health, biomedical history, and the sociocultural history of disease in Latin America. Within the framework of the Medicine, Science, and the Humanities major, students will learn to recognize the value and relevance of literature and art to their personal, educational, and professional growth.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

A graduate seminar that focuses on texts by contemporary U.S. Latinx writers published after 2015, as well as works of scholarship and criticism in Latinx literary and cultural studies. Students will familiarize themselves with a body of work from the largest (and still growing) cultural "minority" in the U.S. to interrogate the major themes of this course––"Latinx," "minority," and "now"––as well as reflect on how national, comparative, and "minority" texts mutually interact and inter-implicate one another.

Distribution Area: Humanities

As the humanities grapple with climate change, theories emerging from or centered on Amazonia contribute to a broader rethinking of the relationship between nature and culture, challenging the very definitions of these terms and the core tenets of modernity. This course explores how Amazonia has sparked new ways of thinking and aesthetic languages. We will focus on recent scholarship in archeology, anthropology, environmental humanities, and literary and cultural studies in relation to earlier ideas about Amazonia. Alongside this, we will examine literature, photography, film, and multimedia, discussing the ways in which the encounter with Amazonia has shaped aesthetic practices and, in turn, how these practices contribute to or even anticipate theoretical perspectives. Topics include thinking and its manifestations beyond the human, cosmotechnics and/as cosmopolitics, representation, and the ontological turn. Readings will include work by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Aparecida Vilaça, Eduardo Kohn, Philippe Descola, Emanuele Coccia, Davi Kopenawa, Bruce Albert, Eduardo Neves, Macarena Gómez-Barris, Lucia Sá, among others. All readings and discussions will be in English.

Distribution Area: Humanities

This seminar takes as its jumping off point the question of how the representation of race and ethnicity intersects with theories surrounding aesthetics, literary form, and speculation writ large, proposing that the investigation of these elements and their various imbrications offer an important aperture to consider the contemporary, and ways to reflect on the haunting remainders of history as they become manifest in cultural production.

Distribution Area: Humanities

Humanists possess a reservoir of scholarly abilities that prime them for contributing to debates well beyond the academy. This semester-long workshop will introduce graduate students to the basics of writing for such broad audience. Each session will be organized around particular topics in public humanities writing, including the pitching, writing, editing, and publishing processes of newspapers, magazines, and online outlets. We will also consider the forms of writing that most allow scholars to draw from their academic training and research: reviews, personal essays, op-eds, interviews, and profiles. Throughout the course we will see how the interdisciplinarity, comparativism, and multilingualism of fields from across the humanities can be helpful for reaching wide audiences. Beyond the nuts and bolts of getting started in so-called “public” writing, this course aspires to teach graduate students how to combine quality writing with academic knowledge, scholarly analysis with a general intellectual readership—and, ultimately, make academic knowledge a public good. Taught in English.

Prerequisite(s): Students who took AS.215.748 are not eligible to take AS.215.718.

Distribution Area: Humanities

Increased awareness of climate change has led to a shift in the way we address and intervene in environmental issues in the new millennium. Yet the interest in making sense of the environment has a long history in literature and the arts. How have Latin American writers and artists understood and depicted their environments and environmental questions? How do the form and content of texts and cultural artifacts influence our understanding of the non-human world? Can works of fiction shape ecological transformations? In this course we will discuss texts from the early colonial period to the present, including the literary works of Graciliano Ramos, Horacio Quiroga, and Clarice Lispector; political ecology; film; Ana Mendieta’s earth-body art; contemporary experiments in bio-art; postcolonial theory; and the intersection of environmental justice with such topics as nationalism and human rights. Going beyond ecocriticism’s original focus on the Anglo-American world, we will engage recent scholarship on Latin America that sheds light on the region’s cultural and geopolitical importance to the global climate, with particular attention to Brazil. This course aims to introduce students to current debates in Latin American Ecocriticism and the Anthropocene and thus contribute to an incipient but expanding field.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1)

The vast body of work produced women artists and writers in Brazil has been marginalized by canonical cultural narratives, which are now being contested by a spate of scholarly and artistic projects. This course spotlights the production of women from the early twentieth century to the present, including renowned and lesser-known works. We’ll discuss art, literature, and film alongside feminist theory, exploring radicality as it relates to aesthetics and politics. How do women’s art, literature, and thought engage with and transform Brazilian cultural production? What are their contributions to global discussions about gender and sexuality? How do these works respond to historical events? Among the topics addressed are the body, feminism, race, indigeneity, and politics. We’ll study Clarice Lispector’s acclaimed stories, the first Brazilian proletarian novel written by modernist icon Patricia Galvão, known as Pagu, the diaries of Carolina Maria de Jesus, the emblematic paintings of Tarsila do Amaral, and Lygia Clark’s artwork, as well as the booming scene of contemporary cinema and poetry. The course is taught in English, but those interested in doing the coursework in Portuguese (4 credits) should register for section 02.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1)

This course will explore the many genres of traditional and popular music that have emerged among the peoples and cultures of the Caribbean region and its Diaspora. We will examine the social, political, and economic issues that have shaped the region’s music and how that music may have intersected with migration, colonization, ethnicity, race and tourism. Using a “participantobservation” approach, students will read about, listen to and research a variety of musical experiences within the relevant sociopolitical context. Students should expect to fully participate in discussions about the assigned readings and music, and should be prepared to conduct their own research and share their own or newly acquired knowledge of contemporary and “historical/traditional” musical themes, and local and regional artists. Our collective goal will be to enjoy as well as to think critically about music, culture and performance and within a moreinformed understanding of the complex, multi-varied and multi-vocal context—know as “The Caribbean”.

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)

The seminar will introduce students to the political and economic trajectories of Latin America as a whole and of individual countries, including Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. Special attention will be paid to the long-term trajectory of the political regime (democracy versus dictatorship) and of economic development (variations in GDP per capita). Competing theories, from economic dependence to historical institutionalism, will be examined for their contribution to our understanding of Latin America’s relative economic backwardness and low quality democracies.

Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1)

Writing Intensive

Business, Finance, and Government in East Asia explores the dynamics of East Asia's economic growth (and crises) over the last fifty years. We will examine Japan's post-war development strategy, the Asian tiger economies, and China's dramatic rise. Centered on case studies of major corporations, this course examines the interplay between politics and economics in East Asia, and considers the following questions: How have businesses navigated East Asia’s complex market environment? In what ways can the state foster economic development? How has the financial system been organized to facilitate investment? What are the long-term prospects for growth in the region?

Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1)

This seminar explores the intellectual origins and ongoing intellectual productivity of the historical materialist account of political economy inaugurated with Karl Marx. It considers, in particular, how fatal couplings between power and difference are leveraged by capitalism as a tool of accumulation. Women’s labor and social reproduction, nature’s availability for mastery and the destructive exploitation of land and natural resources, racial inferiority and exploitative conditions of labor, and Global South peoples conscription into hyper-exploitative labor. The seminar will explore and interrogate the political dimensions of these transformations: how are relationships of political rule entangled with capitalist priorities of accumulation and which peoples/political subjects get to do the ruling and why? How did patriarchal and racial arrangements came to be, how do they relate to the production of value, and how are they sustained politically today? How do historical political transformations (including formal decolonization, democratic transitions, and the onset of free trade and structural adjustment, among others) inaugurate new forms of accumulation and how do these forms and their politics take different shape in the North and the Global South? A sample of the readings include Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, W. E. B. Du Bois, Silvia Federici, Andreas Malm, Ruy Mauro Marini, and others.

Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

This seminar explores the intellectual origins and ongoing intellectual productivity of the historical materialist account of political economy inaugurated with Karl Marx. It considers, in particular, how fatal couplings between power and difference are leveraged by capitalism as a tool of accumulation. Women’s labor and social reproduction, nature’s availability for mastery and the destructive exploitation of land and natural resources, racial inferiority and exploitative conditions of labor, and Global South peoples conscription into hyper-exploitative labor. The seminar will explore and interrogate the political dimensions of these transformations: how are relationships of political rule entangled with capitalist priorities of accumulation and which peoples/political subjects get to do the ruling and why? How did patriarchal and racial arrangements came to be, how do they relate to the production of value, and how are they sustained politically today? How do historical political transformations (including formal decolonization, democratic transitions, and the onset of free trade and structural adjustment, among others) inaugurate new forms of accumulation and how do these forms and their politics take different shape in the North and the Global South? A sample of the readings include Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, W. E. B. Du Bois, Silvia Federici, Andreas Malm, Ruy Mauro Marini, and others.

Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences

This course will introduce the main theoretical perspectives, debates, and themes in the field of international development since the mid-20th century. It has three sections. The first section focuses on debates over what conditions and strategies generate capitalist economic growth and on the relationship between capitalist growth, colonialism, enslavement, the construction of social difference, human welfare, and inequality. The second section presents critical assessments of development interventions from various perspectives. The third section considers the role of social movements in shaping development and social change in the 21st century.

Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

Race and ethnicity have played a prominent role in American society and continue to do so, as demonstrated by interracial and interethnic gaps in economic and educational achievement, residence, political power, family structure, crime, and health. Using a sociological framework, we will explore the historical significance of race and its development as a social construction, assess the causes and consequences of intergroup inequalities and explore potential solutions.

Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Democracy (FA4.1), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

This course surveys sociological theories and research on immigration to the U.S. Theoretical approaches include theories of international migration, economic sociology, immigration, and assimilation. Research topics include the impact of U.S. immigration laws and policies on immigrant inflows and stocks, self-selection of immigrants, the impact of immigration on the native-born population and the U.S. labor market and economy, and the adaptation of the first and second generations.

Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Science and Data (FA2), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

This course will examine the dynamics of transformative social change in Latin America and the Caribbean through analyses of resistance, rebellion, and revolution. Because revolutionary change is at once the most transformative and the most rare, this course will cover the exemplary cases of the Haitian, Mexican, and Cuban revolutions, but then also ask how theorists have understood the dynamics of both open rebellion and of everyday resistance in societies deeply structured by racial, gender, and class power, situated within an unequal world system. Attending to both local and global dynamics, this course will ask how Latin American dynamics have both conformed to and challenged universalist theories of social change.

Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences

This course explores the complex interplay between race, class, and the politics of decolonization and national independence in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean and Latin America. Through diverse theories, primary sources, and comparative case studies, students will analyze how racialized and exploited groups have challenged systems of imperial and colonial domination while seeking to assert different meanings of freedom. The course moves beyond traditional decolonization narratives that restrict frameworks spatially to the boundaries of the nation-state and temporally to the post-World War II period. By historicizing decolonization struggles and emphasizing the transnational and comparative dimensions of the ideologies and practices of decolonization, we will explore how race and class dynamics within countries intersect with global power relations to shape the politics and processes of decolonization.

Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Citizens and Society (FA4), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

The seminar involves discussions (including with visiting authors) of readings related to the Arrighi Center’s four thematic priorities: (1) Continuity and Change in the Dynamics of Global Capitalism; (2) Changing Structures and Norms of Global Governance; (3) Global Inequality and Development; and (4) Land, Labor and Environmental Rights and Struggles. Participants include faculty and students (graduate and undergraduate) from a wide range of social science and humanities departments as well as visiting scholars from around the world. Undergraduates signing up under 230.375 will participate in both the main seminar with faculty and graduate students, followed by a special discussion session for undergraduates.

Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken or are enrolled in AS.230.675 are not eligible to take AS.230.375.

Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

In the United States, we spend more than $100 billion annually on illegal drugs—and the government spends more than $50 billion a year to combat their sale and use. These statistics raise important and complicated social questions. This course will examine the production, sale, use, and control of illegal drugs from a historical and sociological perspective. We will have three objectives: to understand the social construction of drug use and illegality in the United States and other rich countries; to uncover the political and economic consequences of drug trafficking in those countries that produce drugs, particularly in Latin America; and to examine the political economy of drug control through the so-called War on Drugs, both domestically and internationally.

Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences